Inside the Chicago Police Department’s secret budget (opens in new tab)

> The US justice system is one of the best arguments against the US being a first world country.

Also healthcare. It is one of the few "first" world countries where a bankruptcy due to a medical accident is a very real danger. Obamacare helps some but we are far away from having healthcare worthy of a civilized country.

I do blame them.

You're in a cage. They are outside the cage. You ask. They have no incentive to comply. The power dynamics are not in your favor and that's why they can treat you poorly and get away with it.

Poor treatment in jails/prison helps no one. Everyone who goes to jail is not a cop-killer or wife beater. Even those people do not deserve poor treatment.

I get it. It's easier to generalize then treat each individual as a special snowflake. However, some people would rather kill themselves than go to prison. This also makes the job of police officer more dangerous if people would rather die than surrender knowing all that awaits for them is torture (sleep deprivation, disgusting food, forced labor, isolation, confined spaces, rape etc.).

We do not treat criminals as human beings. We offer them no path to be rehabilitated. They cannot vote, cannot get jobs easily and are social outcasts. You'd be surprised by the amount of people who committed non-violent, victimless crimes and had their lives ruined forever by this broken system.

I understand the police officer is not exactly a social worker. They are a cog in the system but they are not helping, not attempting to improve/change the system and are to blame (along with prosecutor, the justice system and authorities in general).

It boils down to one thing: They have POWER and you don't. They play a role in maintaining the status quo, you don't. Therefore, they are to blame.

Sorry for the rant, it boils my blood when people with no power make excuses for the poor treatment they received from people with actual power.

"But I don't blame them, based on whom I was surrounded by. I wouldn't give an inch to the guys laughing and joking about beating up their girlfriends, her kids, the cops, etc, either."

But in jail (jail is a term for institutions that hold people no longer than one year, in most cases, a majority of a jails population is transient), how do they know who the murderers and wifebeaters are? Isn't that the point of our justice system? Everyone is treated innocent until proven guilty?

Stuff like this has happened to me. I have been wrongly ticked for no registration sticker. Ticketed numerious times for parking illegailly. I have been pulled over for driving around 1:30 p.m. on a Friday night--at least 10 times over the years, and never got a DUI. (They were basically just looking for an easy DUI.)

When I was in college, in the eighties, I can honestly say the tickets I received, I deserved. I didn't deserve being pulled over for no reason, but that's another fight. A fight I've given up on. My father's advice, which he practiced, was just drive an inconspicuous vechicle. That was the 80's. A different decade.

In the 90's, and 2000's, I can honestly state I didn't do the things I was ticketed for. They were honest error on the part of law enforcement, or just made up violations. Or, I'm senile? I'm a bit excentric, but not senile. The violations I was tickets for I luckily got out of. The officer didn't show up, or I paid $10 to contest, and won.

I've given up on honest cops. They are basically revenue collectors in my county. If you don't look like you will fight back, you will get harassed, if you live here long enough.

My only wish is they would tie fines/fees to income levels.

A rich man gets a $500 red light right turn violation; he tells the wife over dinner. It's not a big deal. A poor man gets the same ticket; it could be the last straw.

I heard Switzerland ties driving/parking violations to income. I would like to see it done here. I'm a white guy. I can't imagine what minorites have gone through. This is not the America I was so proud of growing up. We need some systemic changes.

Based on the name of the newly-created account (Gold Coast is a Chicago neighborhood), I would guess so.

Avoid living in certain states. Don't go outside. Don't tell anyone where you live. Maybe move to Canada.

> Civil forfeiture is plain unconstitutional. The legal idea behind it, that property is charged with a crime, and so it doesn't matter if a person is guilty/inocnent or even charged is simply absurd.

Civil forfeiture isn't a punishment for guilt or innocence. It's an adjudication that, more likely than not, nobody has an interest in the property that the law will protect.

Say the police raid a mob stash house and find $10 million in cash. Even if the court cannot figure out exactly who owns the money, it can determine by a preponderance of the evidence that nobody has a legitimate property interest in it because it's more likely than not the proceeds of a crime. Same thing if the property is contraband (drugs, automatic firearms, child porn etc.) There is no need to figure out who owns the property then charge that person because nobody could have a legitimate legal right to contraband. Due process doesn't require anything more than that.

The idea that the "property is charged with a crime" is mistaking the form of the action for the underlying rationale. The cases are styled "U.S. v. 10 cupcakes" because the case is about the legal status of the property, not about any particular person's guilt or innocence.

Now, I think civil asset forfeiture creates more risk of abuse than it is worth, and we should get rid of it. But it's not based on some outlandish legal theory like you imply. If there was a sensible way to cabin it to its purpose (seizing assets that are found in circumstances where it is obvious they are the proceeds of crime), it might even be a good idea.

Every time I see one of those silly "Can you believe those wacky laws still on the books!?" articles I think, y'know, it being illegal to spit on the sidewalk in Hoboken (or whatever) is a hell of a lot less bizarre than the fact that inanimate objects can be held liable in a court of law for the actions of animate humans. The picture that goes with it should be something like a Toyota Corolla sitting behind the defense's table, with somber lawyers around it.

...especially because urinating in public can land you on the list for life.

> If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let them out, ever.

We should recognize that we cannot always judge that correctly. So you either let people out who might still be a danger, or you keep people locked up who might not be a danger. (And, in fact, you do both - all you can do is adjust the proportions.)

But people scream really loudly if you keep people locked up who arguably are no longer a danger...

> If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let them out, ever.

This is not how justice works. If you want to create some other form of government, that's fine, just don't call prison justice.

Civil commitment actually results in this.

Repeat sex offenders are effectively jailed for life.

> If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let them out, ever.

Well, no.

After multiple DUIs, someone can have their license taken away permanently. The justice system has a long history of restricting peoples behavior who are (a) out of jail, but (b) still a danger to themselves or others.

Belief is the standard for justice in a theocracy.

When it works correctly, absolutely. The problem is that often times it doesn't lead to bigger fish but more fish of equal or lesser size since the system often values quantity over quality when it comes to felony convictions.

You'll see this a lot of times when they catch a mid-level dealer. The dealer will roll on the street-level dealers instead of their supplier since it yields dozens of easy felony drug convictions instead of one really difficult case that could eat a ton of resources and still be lost.

How about sending the money to social reform and outreach charities? There would need to be some money spent to ensure the money is distributed well.

Canada is almost as bad as the US.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/civil-forfeitur...

That way they can pay more people to write more tickets.

> Why not all go to Charity?

Without getting too political, several charities only benefit the people who set them up and picking charities is a major political exercise.

> I am fine with taking a car used in a crime away

I'm not, per the story that's exactly what they did.

> but you can't give the money to the person who took the car nor the court that decides

Any money received by the government as a result of someone doing something illegal should not be in the hands of the courts or police. I'd rather it not be decided by anyone and just used in some fund.

There are already a number of arrangements where corporations can pay penalties to 'approved' charities instead of the regulator as part or all of an agreement; these deals have been problematic, as the government officials appear to be using the arrangements to favor interest groups and potential future employers.

I am not saying your idea is a bad one, but I think it is useful to know where the potential problems lie.

Too fraught with risk. Police should be treated like any other government agency -- windfalls or other revenue go right to the general fund.

I'll upvote because you're not entirely wrong. It's entirely reasonable to require that the proceeds of criminal activity be taken from the criminals. Whether it's a stolen car, drugs, or money made from selling a stolen car and drugs. It's all (mostly) similar.

The devil is in the details, though. The rampant "theft by cop" is where you have money, and they take it. No charges, much less conviction.

It's "guilty until proven innocent", which violates one of the fundamental principles of our justice system. It's outright corruption.

It is unreasonable. It is legal to own cash. It shouldn't matter how it was obtained. Cash should only be confiscated in the process of executing a criminal or civil sentence against a person after a guilty ruling.

Yes, but the 14th amendment says "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." You'd think that this would mean that if the government wants to take your property, they have to afford you due process. Instead, they dredge up an obscure concept called in rem jurisdiction from admiralty law. This was originally used in situations where a foreign ship came into port with contraband, and the owner was difficult to determine or couldn't be reached, so they came up with the idea of suing the property instead of the person. Then it was used in non-maritime cases where the owner of the property was unknown or dead. Then they managed to argue that since property isn't a person, it has no constitutional rights -- you're not depriving a person of his property without due process, you're just depriving the property of its liberty. It's unbelievable to me that such an obviously bullshit argument can get past the supreme court.

It's not just criminals though, the police can stop anyone with reasonable 'suspicion' and they do. It's legalised highway robbery. Canada issued a travel advisory to their citizens over it, and the police in New York don't even keep records of what they steal.

Contraband should be seized. Legal property that is connected with a crime should be seized as well.

But, the burden should be on the state to establish that the property is the proceeds of a crime.

When you say "found with a big pile of drugs...it is not unreasonable to take the cash away" I'm going assume you meant "were found guilty in a court of law, the money was determined to be a result of illegal activity and was put into a fund managed with transparency and oversight by elected - not appointed - officials".

The problem is the burden of proof, which is the one massive feature distinguishing the topic of civil forfeiture from the rest of the criminal justice system in which it conceptually resides.

In theory, that sounds correct. But the police shouldnt be able to steal stuff and get funding from it. That's is an adverse incentive for them to follow the rules. It's very clear this is a simple thing that they do to raise money, from the many many stories about small police departments pulling over poor people fishing for cash.

Provided you are convicted first. Otherwise you could screw people up by dumping random drugs in their yard and then calling the police.

This isn't even the normal situation, however. Modest houses, modest cars, and so on can get taken for relatively little amounts of drugs. Have some cash on you to buy a vehicle, and happen to have some pot in your car? Oops, goodbye car.

What you are talking about is unreasonable when you are talking smaller amounts and things.

This is how the vast majority of freedom-limiting laws have been implemented in the US.

Marriage licensing, gun control, and drug prohibition immediately spring to mind. Gun control in particular is a topic I'm invested in - see JPFO's video "No Guns for Negroes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaX3EM-fsc8

On what grounds?

Depending on the result, bringing race into it might lead to people feeling insulated from it, and therefore not care as much ("it only happens to black people. But, I'm not black").

Is it accurate to imply that the Soviets and Chinese had any sense of ownership of their governments? Especially with the forced starvation of Ukraine, it was practically a foreign occupation (this is muddy, Kyiv is a historic center of Russia).

I don't think it's a refutation of Hobbes that a dictator could seize control of a state and perpetrate mass murder.

It galls me so much because I'm usually the one arguing your position, but when it comes to civil asset forfeiture I have to say there's no possible way the SCOTUS has it right. You would honestly be hard-pressed to find too many other legal practices in such regular use today that so fly in the face of any plain or complicated reading of the 4th amendment.

It's not even a little bit wrong, it's staggeringly wrong. It's not a weird technical nuance of law. It's not something the framers never addressed, or an issue that's only come up since the drafting. Yes, the practice of it has a long history that extends long before the US but so did/does slavery, government-sanctioned torture, genocide and collective punishment but nobody's wandering around saying we should allow those because starting the 1700s someone thought they were good ideas.

It's unjust, particularly in it's current implementation, and it completely circumvents due-process.

At least in the US, which wasn't a nation in 1600, this is a prohibition-era deterrent that was reinstated by Reagan to punish drug users, and has been more currently used to fund law enforcement agencies in an astonishingly offensive manner.

Thanks for the suggestions, I didn't think about flipping the text for that half of the chart but that's a good idea. I'm not sure about the blank label but I'll look into that.

maybe, because it was her own son and she didn't want him to face more jailtime? I thought it didn't matter though, I thought the owner could choose not to prosecute, or tell them to drop the case.. or maybe that's on a state-by-state level.